General Information:

Instructor: Don Turnbull
Email:
Phone: (512) 232-3508
Office: SZB 562E
Office Hours: by appointment

Class Meeting Times: 3:00-6:00PM, Thursday
Classroom: SZB 546
Course Website: http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~i385d
TA: Dimitri Lundquist
Email: dimitri.lundquist@gmail.com

Description:

This advanced course reviews the theoretical foundations of information retrieval and information retrieval interfaces and applies these concepts for the development of lightweight text retrieval, designing novel search interfaces and building customized (or vertical) search applications.

Objectives: [Top]

Participate generously in discussions, attend regularly and complete assignments according to the schedule.
Work with other class members to interpret and design course projects.
Understand the basics of Information Retrieval technology.
Review frequency-based informetric laws and their applicability to information retrieval.
Construction of a rudimentary search engine
Develop search sidebar utilities for Web browsers
Tuning and Adding to Web spider and robot applications.
Applying basic Web technologies (Javascript, CSS, XML, RDF) to improve existing search interfaces.
Analyzing Web search interaction logs.
Designing and building Web portals (proactive search)

Textbooks: [Top]

Required

Battelle, John (2005) The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture.
Milstein, Sarah; Dornfest, Rael; Biersdorfer, J.D.; and Matthew MacDonald (2006) Google: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

Recommended

Calishain, Tara and Dornfest, Rael. (2003) Google Hacks. O'Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol, CA.
Karp, David A. (2003) eBay Hacks O'Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol, CA.
Bausch, Paul. (2003) Amazon Hacks O'Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol, CA.
Boswell, David; King, Brian; Oeschger, Ian; Collins, Pete & Murphy, Eric. (2002) Creating Applications with Mozilla. O'Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol, CA. Book Web site
McFarlane, Nigel (2003) Rapid Application Development with Mozilla. Book Web site

Mailing List: [Top]

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